Gathering Dust

She draws in the dirt, scrawling shapeless creatures bred from indolence rather than the imagination. Her twig, worn smoother at one end than the ragged other, scratched and scraped at a thin loose layer. Red ridges parted by one continuous valley outlined vague shells and other marine life. An idle sea in a barren terrain. Boring for a girl, young and full of life; she shouldn’t be here.

Her hair was dusty. Her clothes were stained with powdery dirt. Her fingers were caked in a layer of it. It laid upon her face like the foundation of those rich ladies she sees pass the church, but never approached. Her feet were buried in it. No shoes for her. No shoes for anyone she knew, personally. Still, her skin was dark from the glaring sun. Her lips cracked from licking in the blistering, parching winds that whipped up even more dirt. Her bed was dirty. Her floor was dirt. Her house was wet dirt, dried. Her limbs were lithe, her body thin but not rakishly so. She ate whenever she could, whatever she could, and she passed by as best she could.

On this particular day, there was some time for idleness, rare occasions, and she found herself with nothing to do. It had rained a week ago, pouring, and bucketing rain. But like anything else, the sun had bleached and sucked the moisture out of the earth a day after. The next day, a fierce wind had whipped up a typhoon of dust, and everything that had been washed clean by the rain returned to their normal soiled selves again.

There was water in the cellar. She had food; the people were kind despite their disregard. Out of site, out of mind, and she would remain outside the church until she had food. So she sat there, thinking as the sun slid slowly across the sky.

She came to a conclusion that day.

Nothing ignored ever gathered dust and dirt.
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There was once a little house in the middle of developing suburbia.

It was surrounded by a quaint white picket fence, enclosed a green lawn, and had little white vine roses all over them. The house was cheerful, painted a mellow yellow with a red roof. The curtains were lacy and light blue. An armchair sat on the porch, and on it sat an old man. He looked over the front lawn sadly.

This little house was surrounded, marooned by a sea of development. High rises all around; the little house looked like it was drowned. No more sunlight reached the windows but for that brief period at midday, when the golden rays could struggle between the concrete giants to set the little yellow house aglow.

It used to be the prettiest house in the neighborhood. Now it gathered dust here. The smoke from the buildings, dust of the street, of the giant crater in the ground next door, the dirt that blew on the wind whistling between narrow alleyways, the litter of people passing by…day by day, the little house became greyer as the old man could do nothing more but watch.

Gradually, a film of it stained the vibrant letter box grey. The yellow paint faded to a monotonous brown, the green of the grass instead was a dead yellow. The roses died and bared their crinkly brown leaves and rustling hollow branches to the wind. Only the light blue curtains remained defiant, now faded more white than blue. And as the old man sat there and thought about the memories he had in that house, how he remembered the past, the day passed.

He came to a conclusion that day.

Only those out of place gathered dirt and dust.
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It was musty in that corner, but the box couldn’t remember being anywhere else. It supposed that sometime in the distant past there was an outside.

Sitting there all day, night, day. What did it matter? There was the constant dim light, peeking in through the cracks of the door and the only time it went out was when she was finally asleep. The cupboard door was blank, brown, wooden and opaque. It’s been so long it can’t remember her face anymore.

It was a fine box. Brightly painted, intricately carved and fitted with the best shingles, topped off with a delicate lock. Floral patterns adorned its lid and prancing mermaids danced around its sides. Little fish were enhanced by gilding in the corners and bejeweled with small, glass beads.

But the box was not vain, no. It valued its contents way more than itself. A shiny rock, a feather, a couple of marbles and her first love note. There was a parker with a broken nib, it was her first pen. It was these things that the box worried for, grieved for. How could she forget the shell she had found that summer vacation she had in Hawaii? How could she discard that bow she wore proudly to her first ever school dance.

So it treasured them instead, shelter them from dust and dirt, from the corroding drafts that sometimes wafted in, from the heat in summer and the cold in winter. Gradually, the vibrant colors began to fade. The floral etchings were almost invisible under the powdery dust covering it like icing on a cake. The heat and cold tore at the shiny metal until the shiny delicate lock rusted into an unidentifiable lump. The shingles discolored and jammed from lack of oiling. The jewels gradually loosened from their settings. Even the mermaids seemed to pause in their dance to mourn for their shabby appearance.

But the items inside were as pristine as ever, and that was how the box wanted it to be. And as it sat there, day after day, watching the dust build upon its lid, upon the shelf, upon everything around it, it started thinking.

And the day before the door opened for the last time, it realized something.

Only those forgotten gathered dirt and dust.
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A lot of things gather dirt and dust.

There are a lot of reasons why they do.

What’s our reason?

-Blood